


The Man with the Quiet Voice

by BoldAsBrass



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, One Shot, POV Greg Lestrade, Secret Identity, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-27 07:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18734836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoldAsBrass/pseuds/BoldAsBrass
Summary: Greg takes a stranger home for the night, it might not be his best idea but he's not a complete idiot.





	The Man with the Quiet Voice

Sherlock leans back in his chair, his fingers steepled before his face. Greg recognises that look, though he’s not been on the receiving end of it before. “Let’s go back to the start. How did he first make contact?”

He takes a mouthful of tepid tea and marshals his thoughts. He’s still not quite sure what’s happening. One minute he’s sitting on his sofa, checking the news and minding his own business. The next, he’s got a counter terrorism team bursting through the door, followed by not one but two of the Holmes brothers turning up in his living room at six in the morning, with a speed which would have been flattering, if it hadn’t left him facing both of the Holmes brothers in his living room at six in the morning.

“Arsenal were playing last night, so I went to _The Drayton Park_ afterwards to see who was about. The place was packed. I got chatting to a guy at the bar while I was waiting to be served.”

“What did he look like?”

This stuff is easier, it reels with practised fluency off his tongue. “IC1 male. Early thirties. Clean shaven. Short blond hair. Blue eyes. Medium height, maybe five eight, nine. Slim build. Grey V-neck sweater, white t-shirt underneath, black jeans, black Chelsea boots.” Standard London smart casual outfit - nothing that had warranted a second glance.

“Accent?”

“Nothing I could put my finger on.” He remembers the voice though. Quietly spoken and- what was the word? “Cultured.”

“Coat, bag, other accessories?”

“No coat. Black Nike over-the-shoulder drawstring bag.” He hadn’t wondered what was in it at the time. Now he is.

“Did you tell him you worked for the police?”

“'Course not,” says Greg, irked. He’s not daft. He doesn’t go broadcasting his job to the general public. Half of them want to have a pop to prove they’re Billy Big-Bollocks and the other half want you to arrest their next-door neighbour for stealing their wheely-bin. “Told him I worked for Barnet Council highways department.” No one ever wants to talk about Barnet Council highways department. “He said that his name was Tomasz, he was Polish and that he was working as a quantity surveyor on Crossrail.”

He had looked like a Tomasz, in fairness. Bit smaller than some of the Polish guys Greg had known, but with that blond, blue-eyed thing going on. Clean-cut, in a generic kind of way.

“He is neither Polish nor a quantity surveyor,” says Mycroft speaking for the first time. “He’s Russian by birth and his name is Yassen Gregorovich. He’s a contract killer.”

“Well, I know that _now_ ,” Greg protests.

“We knew he was headed to London,” Mycroft continues. “There’s been an all-agencies alert out for weeks. His description has been widely circulated. Honestly, does anyone in the Met read their email?”

“Does anyone anywhere read their email?” Greg asks. Too much time on their hands if they do.

“You didn’t know _everything_ about him, Mycroft,” Sherlock says, unexpectedly coming to his aid. “You didn’t know he was gay, for example.”

“We don’t know he _is_ gay,” Mycroft snaps. “More likely he’s just opportunistic.”

“Some men are,” says Greg.

“Yes.” Mycroft’s gaze meets his. “Apparently so.” Greg drinks his tea and holds his peace. He’s fifty years old and a free agent. He doesn’t have to justify himself to Mycroft Holmes. “Anyway,” Mycroft continues, more moderately. “My point is, Gregorovich is a law unto himself. Unpredictable. That’s what makes him dangerous.”

“What did you talk about after that?”  Sherlock asks into the sombre pause which follows.

“Football. Politics. London transport system. You know, normal stuff.”

Sherlock’s brow furrows. “And you didn't think to wonder if he was faking interest? Trying to pump you for information?”

“No.” Although thinking back on it, he can’t remember much of what Tomasz had said, though they’d talked for the best part of an hour. Or had they? He’d talked and Tomasz had done- what? Nodded. Smiled. Bought a round of drinks. And the kicker is, Greg should know better than this: he’s interviewed enough people in his time, he knows the power of silence, the importance of not putting himself centre stage. But last night he’d managed to gab on for an hour and not even notice he was the only one talking. “Alright, maybe he was. But why? It’s not like I’m privy to any state secrets.”

“To get to us,” says Mycroft with a certainty none less annoying because he’s probably right.

“So you talked,” says Sherlock. “He listened. Did he say anything about himself?”

“Not much,” Greg admits. At some point it had become understood that they weren’t just chatting, that they were - for want of a better turn of phrase - sizing each other up. And at some point later it became clear that they were going to go home together. “Anyway, it was getting late. He said he was staying on a friend’s sofa in Earl’s Court so we got an Uber back here.”

Here is a first-floor apartment above a betting shop. He’d moved in a couple of months ago once the decree nisi came through and he’s still sorting stuff out. The décor is a bit dingy, but it’s private, central and the rooms are a decent size.

“About what time?”

“Midnight?”

“Midnight.” Sherlock drums his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Six hours ago. If he was planning to kill you, why not do away with you then?”

“Look outside,” Mycroft says reprovingly.

They glance across to the smeary window. The high street is quiet now, a lone street sweeper making his way down the pavement and a few scraggly pigeons the only signs of life. At midnight it had been a different story. The local businesses are a mixture of chicken shops, off licences and taxi firms. At weekends it doesn’t quieten down until past two.

“All right,” Sherlock concedes. “He decides to wait until the neighbours have gone home. What happened in the meantime?”

“I offered him a drink, but he declined. I had a beer.” He nods towards the lone bottle still standing on the coffee table. “We sit on the sofa and, well, things go from there.”

“What things?”

Greg and Mycroft share a brief moment of pained understanding. “He gave me a blowjob,” Greg says.

“Oh.” Sherlock blinks rapidly, assimilating that piece of information into his mental map of the world. “And how was that?”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, but Greg waves him away because while it’s an embarrassing question, it’s also a relevant one.

“It was competent,” he says at last.

“Competent?” Sherlock repeats.

“Yeah.” Now he comes to think of it, that was exactly what it had been. They’d - he’d - been chatting away and then the next thing he knows Tomasz’s hand is on his crotch and he’d slid off the sofa in between Greg’s knees and opened up his fly.

He’d been taken aback. He won’t lie, he’d been hoping something like that was on the cards, but he’d been thinking they might have a kiss and a cuddle first, maybe another drink. He’d sat holding his beer while a guy he’d just met sucked his cock and wondered if this was how things were these days. No messing about, just straight down to business. And the blowjob had been competent. It had everything a blowjob should have: heat, suction, tongue, lips and nothing it shouldn’t: teeth, hairs getting caught in painful places, and it had got him off successfully and with the minimum of fuss.

“Thanks,” he’d said when it was over and Tomasz had given a faint smile.

“Let’s go to your room.”

“To your room?” Sherlock interjects. “Or to bed?”

“Don’t know. Does it matter?”

“I'm not sure.”

Greg showers quickly, it seems like the polite thing to do, and when he slides into bed, he finds Tomasz is already there and undressed. The discovery makes him hesitate. Nothing’s going to happen for him for the next few hours, not when he’s had a few drinks and already got off, but he’s less certain about his guest, who on the one hand doesn’t seem that fussed but on the other is naked and in his bed. It’s been a long time since anyone’s been in Greg’s bed, still less a man several decades his junior. It’s hard to know if he’s up for more or just fancies a night not sleeping on a sofa.

“Alright?” he asks cautiously.

In answer, Tomasz rolls into his side and sniffs the base of his neck, just above his collar bone. “You smell good,” he says. And Greg does remember him saying that, because it’s not a thing that people say to him every day.

“Do I?” It’s just Imperial Leather soap. Nothing fancy. It was the brand he’d grown up with. Probably most men his age had.

“Yes.” He remains lying against Greg’s side, his chin resting on his shoulder and in the darkness beneath the duvet a cool hand strokes down his chest and traces along his ribs, one by one.

“Thanks.” He reaches out and encounters a smooth hard chest, a flat stomach and experiences a mild sense of dislocation: for a quantity surveyor, Tomasz is pretty well built. Then he realises an insistent heat is beginning to press against his thigh and forgets to wonder about it. “Do you want me to return the favour?” he asks as his hand goes lower and doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed when he feels Tomasz shake his head.

“No, do it like this. Slowly.” He takes Greg’s hand and draws it down to his crotch, wrapping it around his hardening cock. “This is nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

All at once, everything seems perfectly natural. Greg gets one arm over his shoulder and pulls him closer so Tomasz lies with his cheek on his shoulder, and with the other hand he obliges as best he can until, sooner than he expects, there’s a rush of wet heat on his stomach and Tomasz relaxes against his side.

“Here,” he says as Greg looks round for something to clean up and uses his T-shirt to wipe up the mess.

“Ta,” he says and shifts him off his shoulder and onto his chest, then absently-mindedly begins smoothing the hair at the nape of his neck. At the first touch, Tomasz goes very still and for a moment Greg thinks he’s overstepped the mark. Maybe blow-jobs are okay but hair-stroking isn’t. Things have moved on a bit in the last thirty years. But he doesn’t protest or shift away, instead he lies motionless and unspeaking, only the flick of eyelashes against his bare chest telling Greg that he’s still awake. Then, unexpectedly, he goes heavy, like he’s suddenly sparked out.

For a slim man, he’s surprisingly dense and it’s not particularly comfortable having him sprawled across his chest, but Greg’s always been a cuddler. When they’d first got together, his wife had liked that about him. They’d used to lie in each other’s arms in their grotty bedsit in Clapham and talk about their hopes and dreams. Later on, she’d gone off it. She said she’d had the kids climbing over her all day and the last thing she wanted was to have him pawing her all night. Intellectually he’d understood, but it had caused a few rows. It’s nice now to have someone to hold as he watches the headlights from passing cars cast shadows across the ceiling and listens to the party-goers on the street below.

He must have slept eventually because when he’d next opened his eyes it’s half five. Sunlight is coming in around the curtains and the shower is running. He gets up, pulls on his bathrobe and goes into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

The kettle has boiled and he’s fishing the teabags out of the cups with a spare chopstick when he realises Tomasz is standing in the kitchen doorway. He’s already dressed in sweater and jeans. No T-shirt, but Greg assumes it must be in his bag. His hair is damp from the shower, swept back from his face and in the bright morning sunshine Greg realises two things. First, that Tomasz is older than he had appeared in the pub’s dim lighting: late thirties rather than early, and second, that he’s very good looking. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. It’s as though he’s suddenly come into focus, and everything in the flat seems extra worn and shabby in comparison.

“Morning,” he says into the silence, “Do you want tea? There’s only paper cups. I haven’t got around to unpacking the kitchen stuff yet.” As he says it, he hears how pathetic it sounds. He’s been in the flat six months now. It’s about time he sorted himself out.

Tomasz doesn’t answer, just stands there looking at him, and for the first time Greg feels a flicker of unease. It’s something to do with the way he’s standing. He’s got his weight distributed evenly over both feet. Most people don’t stand like that, they slant their hips one way or the other and rest their weight on one leg. And it’s something to do with the way he’s holding his bag, not by the drawstring but gripping it by the main body. But mostly it’s the way that Tomasz is staring at him appraisingly, out of pale eyes that are a little too calm to be human. He’s seen that look once or twice before on other men, and it rarely bodes well.

“I didn’t know if you take milk,” he adds. “But there’s some in the fridge, if you want it.”

Tomasz eyes go to the two cups on the counter then back to Greg’s face. There’s a flicker of something in his eyes, which Greg can’t identify. “Black is fine, thank you,” he says, with the ghost of a smile and slings his bag over his shoulder.

“And then what?” Mycroft asks.

Greg shrugs, “He took one of the cups, said ‘catch you later’ and let himself out.” After which he’d walked down the road, turned into a side-street and apparently vanished from existence. “Ten minutes later, your lot turn up.”

Mycroft’s assistant comes into the living room as he’s speaking. Greg’s seen her before. Anthea, John says her name is. “They’ve done a full sweep,” she says. “There’s nothing to find. No trackers, no bugs, no hidden cameras. He’s wiped down all the surfaces and bleached the shower.”

“Good of him,” Greg jokes.

She spares him a brief glance. “To remove fingerprints and DNA.”

“Oh, right.” They really do all think he’s daft.

Sherlock has been staring out of the window unspeaking. Now he stirs and speaks. “I don’t understand. If he’s left nothing behind then you were the target.” He turns his razor-sharp gaze onto Greg and adds almost accusingly, “Why aren’t you dead?”

“Beats me,” Greg says. “I was hoping you pair of geniuses might work it out.” Because he might not be a Holmes, but he isn’t an idiot and there’s no way he’s going to say, ‘I think it's because I gave him a cup of tea and a cuddle.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt 'villains getting hugged.'


End file.
